


In Search of Definition

by mayamaia



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Ice Nine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamaia/pseuds/mayamaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the world hadn't ended, it wouldn't be real.  If the world is real, then it's finished and why the hell are we still here?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Search of Definition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kleenexwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a chocolate locust for mayamaia](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/19406) by kleenexwoman. 



> I told you I would.
> 
> Music: Clair de Lune

If it was a matter merely of proximity, the device would not itself have been affected. Their firearms would have been solid, still, as reliable as the man beside him.

Illya looked from the waxen figure of a man to Napoleon, breathing and moving, next to him. The glance held calculation and dismay.

Solo returned the study with raised eyebrows. "What?"

"We are unharmed. Our guns are not."

Napoleon shrugged. "Maybe there were two signals, and we were shielded from the water one."

"Would that not be rather... too convenient, Napoleon?"

His partner was giving him that look a lot today.

Illya shook his head, unable to articulate his doubts. He stared at the newly-formed statue, the newly made corpse. It was more solid than the gun Napoleon had used to poke it, and a shard had sheered off the tip of the erstwhile Walther. The man's fingers were frozen forever at the front of his trousers, mid-scratch.

 _I wouldn't imagine that,_ Illya thought. _Dreams never bear such detail._

The wind rattled through a nearby walnut grove. White frost rimed the leaves, still green as with life, unwilted. A crack rang out like a shot as a trunk burst apart, not the first to do so and surely not to be the last.

* * *

"Your tie clip."

Napoleon had been unnaturally silent since they had passed the fish pond with its silver surface.  His voice now hit Illya's ear roughly, like a shout though the words had been softly spoken.

Illya swallowed over cotton wool.  They should build a fire soon.  "Plastic.  Originally plastic, I mean.  I won it with a bb rifle at the fair last week."

Solo's face fell.  "Right.  Your improbable aiming skills."

A vision filled Illya's mind, of Napoleon dodging a thrown screwdriver, which had then blossomed from the perfect center of a bullseye on a calendar behind where Napoleon had stood.

Out of the silence of his contemplation, Illya grew aware of a rhythmic roaring, faint in the distance.  His eyes sought Solo's, both pairs simultaneously growing bright with hope.

* * *

"Too distant?"  Napoleon asked from the edge of the bluff where he and Illya watched the waves in their perpetual mad dance upon the shore. Solo was twirling his useless weapon in his fingertips, and the red rays of the sunset made the waves dance with fire.

Illy pointed at a quieter inlet, edged with white. "Too salty, or too much in motion."  He raised his eyes to clouds still skittering overhead.  "It will begin to freeze, but never freeze completely.  Its motion will carry the crystals to new shores.  The salt will grow thick beside the snow clinging to the sands, the earth will heat and there will be a new balance.  The book was wrong."

Napoleon nodded.  "Is that why we are safe, then?  Our bodies awash in their own salton seas..." Illya shook his head and Napoleon caught himself. "Oh yeah.  The guard."

"Our proximity was indeed too great."

Solo jerked, and when Illya glanced over, he saw the man had his fingertip in his mouth.  "Scratch," Napoleon explained.

* * *

"Now that I think of it, it makes no sense," Illya ranted, while his companion shivered by his side.  "All stable physical forms should be present in an entropic system.  The more stable they are, the more likely they should be there.  All it takes to freeze a supercooled solution is disruption.  So why has this never happened before, by accident?"

They had built a fire in a log on shore, and Illya had fashioned a tight basket out of green reeds that had grown limp with dehydration.  With great care and with the help of a stick, he had melted the surface of a chunk of ice and dripped it into the basket until it held a half inch or so of water, then moved the basket over the fire.  Now, stirring constantly, he began to place chunks of ice in it directly.

"I hope you're right," Napoleon whispered, his voice harsh as if something grated in his throat.

Illya snorted.  "You cannot hope if you are just a dream," he said, and looked over at his partner, whose hair was bathed in moonlight, who simply stared at the white frost that rimmed a red cut on his finger.

* * *

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,  
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres  
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,  
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

\- Paul Verlaine, _Clair de Lune_


End file.
